Economics and The Public Welfare

Chapter 71

The Turn in the Political Tide, 1938

The wage and hour act represents President Roosevelt’s last successful effort to override a reluctant Congress. Congressional opposition was growing and public opposition was growing. This came out strikingly in the President’s failure in his effort to “purge” the Senate of the Democrats who had opposed him in the Supreme Court fight and in other matters. His one successful effort to purge was in the New York City primary, where he succeeded in defeating for renomination Chairman John J. O’Connor, of the House Rules Committee. But in his efforts to purge the Senate, he received blow after blow in the face from the voters of the Democratic Party itself. The most conspicuous cases were those of Senator Millard E. Tydings, of Maryland, Senator Walter F. George, of Georgia, and the picturesque Senator Ellison D. Smith, of South Carolina. These men stood and fought, and the people of their States resented the Presidential invasion of the States.

Low Tide for Republicans in Election of 1936. Republican gains in the election of 1938 represented a definite turn in the political tide. The Republicans had had a dramatic victory in 1928. In 1930, as our table below shows, there was a tie in the Senate, but the Republicans retained the committee chairmanships—Senator Reed Smoot, for instance, remaining Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Republicans lost, however, the House of Representatives by a very narrow vote and the Speakership went to the Democrats. In 1932 Senate and House became overwhelmingly Democratic. In 1934 the Democratic tide swept still higher, and after the election in 1936, the Democratic majority was so overwhelming in the Senate, where there were just 16 Republicans left, that there were not enough Republican Senators adequately to man the committees. In the House of Representatives there were only 88 Republicans out of the membership of 435. In 1938, however, the Republicans gained 7 Senators, while in the House of Representatives their vote rose from 88 to 169.

Roosevelt Holds Control of Democratic Congress. Democratic Party discipline held pretty well from 1932 to 1936, though we have noted exceptions in the cases of Senator Glass and Senator Gore, and there were a good many others of the old-school Democrats who believed in States’ Rights, limited functions of the Federal Government, economy in government and sound money, and white supremacy in the South. They were extremely restive under the Party discipline. Senator Ellison D. Smith of South Carolina had made a dramatic protest at the Democratic National Convention in 1936 in Philadelphia, against the bringing in of the Negroes into the Democratic Party. The South was unhappy but it stayed with the Party. Senator Smith, who was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, had also manifested a great deal of impatience with the New Deal agricultural policies.1 But, on the whole, party discipline had held.

Till Supreme Court Fight, 1937—Informal Bipartisan Coalition. It broke, however, with the President’s effort to pack the Supreme Court in 1937, and in 1937-1938 there was a growing informal coalition between conservative Democrats and Republicans. With the Republican Congressional gains in 1938, this informal coalition grew strong enough to make it pretty clear that the New Deal was finished in so far as it depended upon further Congressional support. The opposition was not strong enough to undo what had been done over Presidential veto, but it was strong enough to prevent further New Deal legislation.

The composition of House and Senate following the elections stood as follows:

Election of 1940. Beginning with 1938 there seems to be clear evidence of an ebbing tide for the Democratic Party, and above all, for the New Deal, whenever the people could vote primarily on domestic issues. The election of 1940 showed a Republican loss of 5 seats in the House of Representatives, but a Republican gain of 5 Senators. This was a Presidential year, and foreign problems dominated the picture. President Roosevelt won primarily because people were afraid to “change horses in the middle of the stream.” His opponent, Mr. Wendell L. Willkie, made a surprisingly ineffective and amateurish campaign. He damaged his voice at the very beginning. He largely cut himself off from the organization of the Republican National Committee, and from the stream of information and campaign materials which they had prepared to send him. He early lost a big part of his radio audience by repetitions in new speeches of what had already been said in others. And finally, he took the heart out of a good many of his followers by a surrender to labor leaders on the wage and hour act and on the Wagner Act—which brought him few if any labor union votes. Before the campaign was over there was a sham fight on domestic issues, and President Roosevelt won very easily on the foreign issues.

Sweeping Victory for Anti-New Deal Coalition in 1942. In 1942, with domestic issues again to the fore, the Republican Congressional gains were very impressive. The Republicans gained 10 seats in the Senate and 46 seats in the House of Representatives, so that the standing of the parties in the Senate was 38 Republicans to 57 Democrats, while in the House it was 208 Republicans, 222 Democrats. This made possible an informal but very effective bipartisan conservative majority on domestic issues in both House and Senate. In 1944 the war once more dominated the scene and once more President Roosevelt’s Republican opponent, the brilliant Thomas E. Dewey, in his West Coast speeches, surrendered to the New Deal in domestic issues. Roosevelt won his fourth term as President. Even so, the Democrats lost one seat in the Senate, and the Republican losses in the House of Representatives (their membership dropped from 208 to 190) left them far stronger in the House of Representatives than they had been following the election of 1938. An effective bipartisan coalition of conservatives in Congress remained, which, supporting the President loyally in matters concerned with the war, none the less resisted him successfully with respect to many matters of domestic policy.

• 1This point will be discussed at length in Chap. 34.